Sunday, January 6, 2013

Cancer trials can lack clear information on biopsies | Essentials

Cancer trials can lack clear information on biopsies

Blame Drew's Cancer Blowout
Blame Drew's Cancer Blowout by allaboutgeorge
License (according to Flickr): Attribution License
Excerpt:

People participating in cancer drug trials aren't always given the most straightforward explanation of possible risks and benefits from invasive procedures that may be involved, according to a new study. Biopsies of tumor tissue can help researchers figure out how well a test drug is working - but the invasive, sometimes painful procedures are typically of little benefit to study participants themselves. The new findings show more than five percent of biopsies in such trials may result in complications, but that informed consent documents spend less time explaining those risks than they do for simple blood draws, which are much less invasive. "Most of these procedures don't have any therapeutic value for patients, they are burdensome, they're painful and they carry risk," said Jonathan Kimmelman, from the Biomedical Ethics Unit at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

People:

Jonathan Kimmelman

Overall Sentiment: 0.162999

Relevance: 0.721229

SentimentQuote
-0.138023"Most of these procedures don't have any therapeutic value for patients, they are burdensome, they're painful and they carry risk," said Jonathan Kimmelman, ...
0.0145824"The only reason (patients) should submit to them is to contribute to science in some way," and not with the hope the biopsies will help them get better, he said.
-0.074817"The informed consent documents that are used are not always as clear as they could be," Kimmelman said. ...
0.174708"I think a lot of patients understandably think that when they're volunteering for these studies they're giving tissue for what is cutting-edge science, and sometimes that's true, but not always," Kimmelman said. ...
Sentiment Stats:
  • Number of Quotes: 4
  • Aggregate Sentiment: -0.0235496
  • Mean: -0.0058874
  • Standard Deviation: 0

Dr. Michael Overman

Overall Sentiment: 0.218583

Relevance: 0.700377

SentimentQuote
0.106984"I think giving biopsies is a good thing. I think you learn from it, but you need to do it in an honest fashion," Overman told ...
0.0429942"This is where we should say (to patients), ‘This is an experimental therapy, an experimental biopsy, and you don't have to do it,'" Overman said. ...
Sentiment Stats:
  • Number of Quotes: 2
  • Aggregate Sentiment: 0.1499782
  • Mean: 0.0749891
  • Standard Deviation: 1.7320508075689

Key:

  • Aggregate Sentiment is meant to be an indicator of an individual's overall sentiment.
  • The Mean is meant to be an indicator of an individual's average comment sentiment.
  • The Standard Deviation, when there are enough quotes, will indicate an individual's consistency of sentiment (i.e. a Standard Deviation of 0 would mean they were very consistent in their sentiment and 1 would mean they were very inconsistent).

Note that quote stats are likely to be meaningless beyond the aggregate score due to the tiny sample size. However, they are always provided just in case you find something useful there.

Additional Info:

Company: Reuters

Overall Sentiment: 0.602188

Relevance: 0.466029

Organization: Anderson Cancer Center

Overall Sentiment: -0.281799

Relevance: 0.314673

Organization: University of Texas

Overall Sentiment: -0.344183

Relevance: 0.309229

Organization: McGill University

Overall Sentiment: -0.0298234

Relevance: 0.301863

HealthCondition: tumor

Overall Sentiment: 0.381489

Relevance: 0.751201

HealthCondition: cancer

Overall Sentiment: 0.0554321

Relevance: 0.676845

Disambiguation: FieldOfStudy | DiseaseOrMedicalCondition | CauseOfDeath | DiseaseCause | MedicalSpecialty | RiskFactor | DiseaseReferences:

Country: Canada

Overall Sentiment: 0

Relevance: 0.321439

Disambiguation: Location | GovernmentalJurisdiction | Kingdom | AwardDiscipline | FilmScreeningVenueReferences:

City: Montreal

Overall Sentiment: -0.0135335

Relevance: 0.31714

Disambiguation: FictionalUniverse | GeographicFeature | AdministrativeDivision | GovernmentalJurisdiction | Island | OlympicHostCityReferences:

City: Houston

Overall Sentiment: -0.780742

Relevance: 0.307443

Disambiguation: PoliticalDistrict | AdministrativeDivision | GovernmentalJurisdiction | PlaceWithNeighborhoodsReferences:
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